Article: Why Cripple Sex is Not a Fetish

[elbs]

I came across this article by a dev, who says that her preference should not be considered a fetish.

www.literoticatokindle.com/s/why-cripple-sex-is-not-a-fetish

It's sparked interesting thoughts for me. Personally, I define a fetish as something that makes a normally non-sexual situation feel sexual for the person. But that raises the question of what counts as a sexual situation by usual standards. Does seeing someone you find hot doing everyday activities count?

I know I definitely feel like a fetishist when I'm watching a video of someone transferring, and I'm getting turned on, and the comments are all wheelers thanking him for helping them learn how to do it and various ABs expressing sympathy for his injury and asking questions about it, and no one is acting like he's particularly hot.

It reminds me of chubby chasers vs feederism. Chubby chasers (people who have a thing for fat people) don't necessarily have a fetish, because they're just attracted to people with a certain body type, and so are most people. But feederism is definitely a fetish, they're turned on by weight gain and eating, which turns non-sexual situations sexual for them.

I suspect that the dev community, too, has a mix of dev fetishists and devs who just have a preference. But I'm not sure exactly how to draw that line.

It also reminds me a bit of the arguments against labeling yourself as a devotee/chubby chaser/trans-attracted or whatever. I think that it's valuable to talk about having an unusual preference for a certain type of partner, even if it's only considered unusual because society sees them as not being viable partners. I see a lot of categories of people as being essentially socially constructed (disability itself is a socially constructed category - there's nothing inherently linking autism with spinal muscular atrophy, for example, just the fact that ableism affects both of us and society groups us together).

Maybe in a society that didn't stigmatize disability, devs would have no more need to label themselves than people who are into redheads. But that doesn't mean it's not valid to label yourself in a society that tells you that disabled people are not supposed to be attractive and you're weird for being attracted to them.

[mona]

Thanks for sharing that piece, elbs! I pretty much agree with the author.

By the way: I don't find anything interesting about people transferring. It's been said a thousand times here but I can only repeat it: We're all different.

Edit: I just remembered how I was once really turned on when a friend removed the thing of his cochlea implant in order to change the battery. I guess that is the kind of non-sexual situation that causes arousal you're describing, comparable to the transfers. But I would not feel that arousal if just a random stranger did something with his hearing-aid. Maybe I have to check and look for YouTube videos of that kind. 😜

[Experimentalist]

My partners have all been non-dev so it never occured to me that it was even a thing (until the infamous BBC doc got me to google and find this place). So I don't think it's a fetish, but as with everything, defining things universally is impossible.



That said, don't assume that sex with a disabled person is fetish-free ... 'Traditional' fetishes like BDSM or edging are a good way to spice things up 

[napoleon]

Hi elbs this was so interesting and I have a lot of thoughts about it. Just to begin, I am obviously not a dev, so if I make a generalisation below that a dev doesn't agree with, just let me know. but since this is on the general board I'll dive write in.

Firstly I don't agree with your characterisation of a fetish. the DSM of mental disorders defines things like this: "Fetishistic Disorder is a DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition), diagnosis assigned to individuals who experience sexual arousal from objects or a specific part of the body which is not typically regarded as erotic. Almost any body part or object can be a Fetish."
So the difference is that a fetish cannot relate to a process e.g. a transfer. It could relate to the wheelchair, or the foreshortened legs of the person in question, but cannot relate to the process they carry out. So the article's author uses the word "fetish" in a way which is not medically accurate.
The better term would be paraphilia, which is defined thus:
"Paraphilia is the experience of intense sexual arousal to atypical objects, situations, fantasies, behaviors, or individuals." Yes, a fetish can be a subset of a paraphilia but does not need to be.
The article took umbrage at the fact that, to society, an attraction towards a disabled person is not typical. Even if that were not true (and it is, like it or not) the term "paraphilia" would still apply, because non-sexual situations still trigger arousal in devs. They may not be the same situations, but are there devs that do not find any situation involving disability sexually arousing? That seems impossible to me. So, all devs have a paraphilia, as it is medically classified as such.

Matt

[mona]

napoleon, in theory you're absolutely right. There are definitions made by scientific authorities and it makes sense to just apply them. But sometimes, the definitions seem wrong to those who are concerned. Then they should suggest to modify those definitions and that's how I understood elbs' post.

The thing is, until recently the word "paraphilia" implied a disorder - that should be cured. Since 2013 sexologists distinguish between "paraphilia" and "paraphilic disorder", the latter applies when the paraphilia is considered threatening to the society. And here's the sore point: From what I have experienced, people find devoteeism in general strange if not sick, and maybe not threatening to the society as a whole but at least to pwds - which are regarded as a social group requiring a particular protection by society.

So personally, if someone defines devoteeism as a paraphilia it would always make me uneasy. Related to devoteeism it's not a very accurate term.

[mona]

And as to the fetish issue, I recommend reading this thread:

paradevo.proboards.com/thread/3998/devoteeism

[napoleon]

hi.

Yes that's quite a good point - but that is why I differentiated between paraphilia and paraphilic disorder. I don't see why the former would be objectionable but fair enough .

[Deleted]

I never viewed my attraction to paraplegic guys as a fetish, to me it's an attraction to a certain type of person. I personally put it in the same category as any other attraction.

I don't see the person in the wheelchair as an object but a person who has certain attributes that I like.

Now the things/objects they use on a daily basis to live their lives may be different. Those are objects and I like them but the objects alone without the matching person won't do anything for me by just sitting there.
Then my fetishes come into play but the paraplegic is missing from that picture because then it's about my interests and things that get me off.

I know some devs consider their being a devotee a fetish but to me a fetish is something different.

I differentiate between being a devotee and having fetishes that sexually arouse me.
A guy in a wheelchair doesn't get me off in the way my fetishes do. A guy in a wheelchair just interests me very much and stirs my curiosity about his situation and his life. I'm not instantly sexually aroused by looking at the guy in the wheelchair.

My fetishes on the other hand are part of my sexuality and may cause instant arousal.

I think the line is blurred between devoteeism and it being a fetish. It also depends on every individual devotee and how they view their interests.

[devine]

I do view my attraction as a fetish.

Youtube videos of every day wheeler life are my porn and I do get off watching them. I do get aroused by wheeler struggles, like difficult transfers, etc. Videos of Wheelers I don't know, wheelers I will never meet. Oftentimes, I mute those videos, because I'm not interested in their personality and I just wanna get my quick wheeler fix.

Am I a bad person? Yeah, and a good person and 100 shades of good and bad inbetween.

[Nia]

devine I don't think I've read anything more honest ever here on PD. I can't relate to everything you wrote but that's beside the point. The point is you nailed it I don't need to read, think and dig more into the topic

[Experimentalist]

Jan 11, 2018 6:36:28 GMT -5 devine said:

I do view my attraction as a fetish.

OK, but just realise that labels have baggage. That goes for 'fetish', 'dev' and 'pwd'. We may assume that we mean the same thing by them but there are usually shades of difference and those shades produce strong feelings.

Jan 11, 2018 6:36:28 GMT -5 devine said:

Youtube videos of every day wheeler life are my porn and I do get off watching them.

And personally I'm fine with that. Let's say you and I were friends and I knew that after meeting for lunch you would go home and jill-off. I'd find that funny and flattering, even exciting. I'm sure I'd tease you about it all the time  I wouldn't feel offended by it. 

If you were harassing me in some way that would be different and I might get very upset by that. You shouldn't feel you are a bad person just because a certain type of guy excites you. Some women get that from seeing a nice beard. The important question is how you behave - whether you are respectful to others. Don't go pulling random guys beards on the street for example

[devine]

Jan 11, 2018 13:37:34 GMT -5 Experimentalist said:

Jan 11, 2018 6:36:28 GMT -5 devine said:

I do view my attraction as a fetish.

OK, but just realise that labels have baggage. That goes for 'fetish', 'dev' and 'pwd'. We may assume that we mean the same thing by them but there are usually shades of difference and those shades produce strong feelings.

Jan 11, 2018 6:36:28 GMT -5 devine said:

Youtube videos of every day wheeler life are my porn and I do get off watching them.

And personally I'm fine with that. Let's say you and I were friends and I knew that after meeting for lunch you would go home and jill-off. I'd find that funny and flattering, even exciting. I'm sure I'd tease you about it all the time  I wouldn't feel offended by it. 

If you were harassing me in some way that would be different and I might get very upset by that. You shouldn't feel you are a bad person just because a certain type of guy excites you. Some women get that from seeing a nice beard. The important question is how you behave - whether you are respectful to others. Don't go pulling random guys beards on the street for example

Having a fetish and harassing somebody are two different things. For me. Anyways.

[mona]

Jan 12, 2018 6:51:07 GMT -5 devine said:

Jan 11, 2018 13:37:34 GMT -5 Experimentalist said:

OK, but just realise that labels have baggage. That goes for 'fetish', 'dev' and 'pwd'. We may assume that we mean the same thing by them but there are usually shades of difference and those shades produce strong feelings.

And personally I'm fine with that. Let's say you and I were friends and I knew that after meeting for lunch you would go home and jill-off. I'd find that funny and flattering, even exciting. I'm sure I'd tease you about it all the time  I wouldn't feel offended by it. 

If you were harassing me in some way that would be different and I might get very upset by that. You shouldn't feel you are a bad person just because a certain type of guy excites you. Some women get that from seeing a nice beard. The important question is how you behave - whether you are respectful to others. Don't go pulling random guys beards on the street for example

Having a fetish and harassing somebody are two different things. For me. Anyways.

Yeah, definitely.

When I was still at university, I had a job at a shoe shop (Al Bundy didn't work there). One day after work a man had been waiting in front of the shop for my colleague. He approached her and asked her whether she was willing to sell him her used socks as he was a foot fetishist. He asked her in a polite way. As he was rather good-looking I think she found it -like Experimentalist in his hypothetical story - funny and flattering. She actually thought about selling them to him but finally didn't (at least that's what she told me). Of course she was also a bit uneasy but she didn't feel threatened or harassed. In my eyes it was definitely a molesting behaviour and she could have reported him to the police.

Compared to that, watching youtube videos from pwds and enjoying them in a sexual way even though the authors did not intend to produce porn seems harmless to me. However, the picture gets a different mood when the pwd is female and the dev male. I can see why disabled women don't find it funny if men watch their videos muted as if it was porn.

What I want to say is, the line between living out a fetish and harassing can be blurred.

And Experimentalist, I am curious to know whether there are women who watch videos with bearded men as if they were porn. 😀

[elbs]

Jan 12, 2018 6:51:07 GMT -5 devine said:

Jan 11, 2018 13:37:34 GMT -5 Experimentalist said:

OK, but just realise that labels have baggage. That goes for 'fetish', 'dev' and 'pwd'. We may assume that we mean the same thing by them but there are usually shades of difference and those shades produce strong feelings.

And personally I'm fine with that. Let's say you and I were friends and I knew that after meeting for lunch you would go home and jill-off. I'd find that funny and flattering, even exciting. I'm sure I'd tease you about it all the time  I wouldn't feel offended by it. 

If you were harassing me in some way that would be different and I might get very upset by that. You shouldn't feel you are a bad person just because a certain type of guy excites you. Some women get that from seeing a nice beard. The important question is how you behave - whether you are respectful to others. Don't go pulling random guys beards on the street for example

Having a fetish and harassing somebody are two different things. For me. Anyways.

Yes, attraction is not the same as action.

[Experimentalist]

Jan 12, 2018 6:51:07 GMT -5 devine said:

Having a fetish and harassing somebody are two different things. For me. Anyways.

I agree. I thought that's what I was trying to say but it must have gotten a bit muddled, sorry.

The thing I didn't mention, but is part of the picture, is gender. Harassers are almost always men. There are some rare cases of women who harass men, but it's almost always men who harass. Most men don't harass but as recent news coverage show, it's more common than we like to admit.

Devoteeism is very rare in both men and women, unfortunately. If 10% of men harass and if 0.001% of men are devotees then it's plausible that 10% of those men harass. If 0.001% of women are devotees it's very unlikely that any of them has ever harassed.

The problem occurs when a rare case of male-creep-dev-harasses-woman gets news coverage (as ishould, along with other harassment) and perhaps the article even contains the word 'fetish', because journalists like the rest of us can be lazy. And because devoteeism is rare, that may be the only story a general person ever reads about devoteeism and so in their mind devoteeism = fetish = harassment. Very unfortunate.

Some devotees are weary of the word fetish because they assume they general public might associate it with creepyness. Technically that's wrong according to the definitions, but like it or not, usage determines dictionary definitions, not the reverse. There have been many discussions in the past, trying to adjust the definition of devotee or find a new word. Sometimes people use the term 'bad dev' to mean creep. While gender is a factor, you cannot say 'male dev' to mean creep because I'm sure most male devs aren't harassers either. But nuance is hard to squeeze into a single word that isn't used very broadly. We'll keep having misunderstandings - we'll just have to keep clarifying as we go

So to clarify -- I don't think any of you female devs or gay devs on here would ever harass anyone and I feel for the trouble you have being understood by the general population and for those who choose to keep it completely secret. If you choose to call it a fetish, that's fine with me and I understand what you mean by that, but please keep in mind that that word might sit less comfortably with others.